Frames are self-imposed limits. They’re the boundaries we convince ourselves we can’t cross—the “impossible” lines we draw around what we believe we’re capable of.

At MIT’s entrepreneurial bootcamp, I ran straight into one of my own frames. The challenge was clear: research, design, and pitch a commercial venture in just five days. Having spent more than a decade running Six06 Strategy and working with startups, I knew how hard it is to take even a single idea from spark to traction. Five days felt impossible.

And yet, at the end of the week, we did it. Our team validated assumptions, interviewed potential customers, shaped a business model, and pitched to investors. The ventures were diverse, but they all had one thing in common: they didn’t exist just five days before.

The lesson was unmistakable: the frames we operate within are almost always smaller than what we’re actually capable of.

The Power of Discipline

Part of what made this possible was MIT’s Disciplined Entrepreneurship framework. Instead of chasing a “big idea,” the process forced us to start with the customer. We conducted primary market research—short, targeted interviews—to surface unmet needs. We formed hypotheses, tested them quickly, and pivoted when the data told us to. The rigor of the framework, combined with the constraint of five days, made speed possible. It wasn’t chaos; it was structured acceleration.

In Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy’s book, 10x Is Easier Than 2x, they write, “To make a goal effective, you’ve got to test its outer limits. Push it out as far as you can. Only once you make your goal impossible will you stop operating based on your current assumptions and knowledge.” And later, “The easiest way to get 2x growth is by going for 10x, because 10x forces you to stop almost everything you’re doing, which is ultimately a waste of time anyway.”

That’s the paradox. By aiming for 10x instead of 2x, you’re forced to abandon incrementalism and break your frame. You stop tweaking around the edges and start reinventing how you work.

Most leaders underestimate this shift. Aiming for 2x growth feels safe, achievable, and realistic. But it keeps you inside the frame of current assumptions. Aiming for 10x, on the other hand, requires you to drop almost everything you’re doing now and rebuild from first principles. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also where real innovation lives.

At MIT, my frame was simple: “You can’t launch a venture in five days.” Breaking it revealed how quickly progress can happen once you step outside the lines you’ve drawn for yourself.

So the question is: what frame is limiting you? Everything you’re striving for sits just beyond it. Break the frame—and you’ll find the growth you’re really after.